Dir - Conor Boru
Overall: MEH
Taking its cue from black comedy mockumentaries Man Bites Dog, The Last Horror Movie, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, co-writer/director Conor Boru's full-length debut When the Screaming Starts is off to tired start from the onset. Not to shoot it down on premise alone since how many "city family moves out to a haunted house in the country" stories have we endured over the decades, per example? That said, Boru's concoction here offers nothing new or interesting to its niche, giving us another aspiring filmmaker who decides to follow a serial killer around in order to break new cinematic ground. You know, how literally NO aspiring filmmaker on the face of the planet would ever do, let alone with a murderer who willingly wants their crimes fully documented. Whereas other movies of this nature utilized such an absurd-on-paper premise to examine severe mental illness or people's inherent addiction to violence and the sociopaths who inflict it, this one just goes for straight goofiness. No one on screen is relatable as they are merely cartoonish caricatures whose only purpose is have enough silly quirks to garnish some macabre chuckles, but it lacks the charm, inventiveness, and comedic chops of say What We Do in the Shadows, which is yet another superior film that it can be inspirationally linked to.
Dir - Anita Rocha da Silveira
Overall: MEH
Whereas Robert Eggers remarkable The Witch shined a light on Puritan fear-mongering dogma gone awry, Anita Rocha da Silveira's sophomore full-length Medusa looks at violent Christian youth gang culture in her native Brazil with more aggressively unpleasant results. The issues that can be found with such a film are intentionally in place, namely that both its subject matter and its characters are top-to-bottom appalling. Yet simultaneously, da Silveira slowly unveils an agenda to break down the disgusting and hypocritical hierarchy that its female characters have willfully endured. Groomed to be on their best behavior and to present physical beauty and godly cleanliness in order for their men to exhibit any form of violence against them or others that they wish, (when not making swooning girls watch them practice choreographed macho dance routines or have a hunky preacher expel anxiety demons from his flock), there is an inevitable primal screaming breaking point to it all. Along the way, da Silveira takes an arhouse approach, balancing bizarre set pieces that bounce between the ridiculous, the violent, and the frightening. Unfortunately, the movie's over two hour running time affords for it to meander with characters that take too long to garnish any sympathy for, if any sympathy is garnished at all. It is stylish and challenging with a great soundtrack to boot, but it still falls shy of deserving its redemptive arc.
Dir - Samantha Aldana
Overall: MEH
Eating disorders are, (perhaps), oddly absent as subject matter in the horror genre, which is something that at least gives Samantha Aldana's full-length debut Shapeless an edge. Co-written by its lead actor Kelly Angell, it is a disturbed character study that tries to capture a type of consuming anxiety where one finds themself at a loss to connect with the rest of the world as they are swimming in their own growing psychosis. As an aspiring jazz singer with bulimia, Angell is vulnerable throughout, presenting herself at a persistent distance from her co-workers and band mates while she hallucinates various body mutations that only she can see. This of course is a clear cinematic representation of what those who suffer such afflictions endure, obsessing over their appearance and finding unflattering faults no matter what the scale says. Yet Angell's ailment seems to go much deeper than simply a weight issue in comparison to conventional beauty as her struggling musical career and ambitions, (coupled with jealousy), are as big of a drive if not more so. It makes for a confused watch that is more concerned with its psychologically dark ambiguity than in anything graspable. This is likely intentional, but despite Angell's solid performance and some artful visuals, the film wallows more than it captivates.
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